Hereditary

Hereditary is another A24 art-house/ horror film that focuses more on the concepts of supernatural fear rather than easy jump scares and meaningless hauntings. The characters that inhabit this film are not an innocent suburban family that bought the wrong house or board game; they are a broken collection of survivors desperate to find a normal life outside of the bizarre curse that flows through their blood. I saw this film last night with two friends of mine, and we had a blast; after several hours, all three of us agreed that it was not scary, but it definitely was a unique and lingering experience.

This is writer-director Ari Aster’s first feature film, and he knew exactly how to create a thrilling story. His eye for framing is brilliant, and every time he made my skin crawl by just panning through the rooms he meticulously created. The atmosphere of the physical house mirrors the articulate doll houses that are present in each scene, and this is quickly highlighted in the opening scene where the characters emerge from the doll house rather than the life-sized room. The camera angles and long shots, as well as staged transitions from room to room, make the entire film look like it is trapped within a miniature play-set. Even one of the characters, the artist Annie played by Toni Collette, recreates previous scenes within her workroom for display. This attention to dolls and miniatures made the texture of wood and cloth within each room explode into the camera. Not only is this aspect a unique aesthetic, but it feels like the house itself is plotting against its living residents.

The characters in this film are enticing as seen through their corruption from trauma. This is the best aspect of the film. The story is focused on one family: how the past has shaped them, how their actions haunt them, and how their lineage has created a future they cannot escape. This family is not normal, not in the slightest, which is why the concrete roles each member plays in trying to survive in the house is so interesting. Annie is an unstable mother after the funeral of her mother. She tries to control her two kids and maintain her job to forget her past, but it always finds its way to torment her family past the breaking point. She begins as a worried mother, but by the end she is a shattered soul trying to leave the curse that controls the house. Gabriel Byrne plays the father, Steve, who is separated from the bloodline of the family during these events. He tries to mediate the emotion and fear from the shadows, but his skepticism holds him back from truly preventing the madness from spreading. The camera avoids his perspective, focusing on the pain of the other family members, but each time he finds himself in the scene, he can never wrap his mind around the supernatural forces. This eventually leads to his downfall, which was one of the best scenes in the film.

My favorite character out of the family is Alex Wolff’s Peter. A majority of the conflict centers around him, and all of his actions yield grave consequences beyond anyone’s control. The relationship between Annie and him is a tense and startlingly unique twist within a mother-son-story. Alex Wolff gives a stellar performance, crying or melting in fear in almost every scene, and his reactions never seem to repeat as the horror hunting him steadily increases until it has him cornered.

Overall the characters are strong and visually develop right on screen, but the story is what makes this film special. Every twist threw me out of my seat, and when everything hits the fan, it screams through the silence, taut with suspense. Writer-director Ari Aster’s debut is a perfect manipulation of set design, cinematography, sound design, and overall framing that gives the world of this film an unsettling core only exposed to the audience at the last moment. There are no cheap jump-scares, no loud musical cues. Every horror element is found in the silence of shadows and corners of the house, where the audience knows what the characters have yet to discover. Some might find this film lacking in its scares—I was personally terrified for most of it—but it is a fantastic experience without a doubt.

Story Rating: 9/10

Character Rating: 8/10